Links to items from the CUU 2003 proceedings are now available on the CUU 2003 program page.

Links go to the ACM Digital Library. You will have to log in to get to the PDF files. My SIGCHI membership gave me access, but if you have a general membership in the ACM DL, you should probably be able to get to them as well. Also, you can buy 1 item at a time if you wish.

Just noticed a few "information experience laboratories" in academia:

University of Missouri-Columbia > College of Education > The School of Information Science and Learning Technologies

The mission of the IE Lab is to improve the users’ information experience in web-based information systems through research methodologies that blend traditional usability evaluation with human information behavior research.

University of Texas > School of Information

The Information eXperience Lab is a research facility designed to study human interaction with recorded and encoded information across a wide range of formats. The lab will enable School of Information researchers to make better assessments, predictions, and designs for the information experiences of the future.

Are there other labs using this label?

It is an interesting mix of "information *" (information architecture, information science, ...) and "* experience *" (user experience, experience design, ...). A few years ago I proposed the term as a way to describe an industry (see comments by Dirk), but the idea did not stick.

I have not seen the term used much outside academia either. A quick Googling yields a few things of note:

• Content Unleashed: Delivering the New Information Experience: Theme for the 2006 NFAIS annual conference
• The Information Experience by Diane Senese: From the October 1997 issue of Information Outlook, this article is focused on how information professionals should consider selling experiences rather than just information
• Oracle Information Experience: Name for an event in The Netherlands
• Is "User Experience", for all intents and purposes, dead?: Information experience is discussed as an alternate term
• informationexperience.com: Personal site by David Millsaps
• Workshop on Information Experience: Part of a conference on Computer Science and Operational Research in Argentina
• Brand Experience and the World Wide Web (PDF): Dirk Knemeyer uses the term in his WebVisions 2004 talk

Any other important uses of the term "information experience" out there? I am sure there are.

不管我们是否愿意，“外包项目”都是一个不得不说的话题。“是不是要外包、什么时间开始”已经不再是关注的焦点，人们谈论的中心变成了“多少钱”——我们可以为外包项目付出多少，更确切地说，我们能坚持外包多久？UX（User Experience用户体验）从业者已经走了很长一段路来使自己与软件设计和已知的UX设计不同。当外包项目到来的时候，我们还能够继续坚持这种不同吗？

The 2nd ACM Conference on Universal Usability is seeking Doctoral Consortium applicants, and extended abstracts on late breaking research in Universal Usability. The conference will be held in downtown Vancouver, Canada from November 10 –11, 2003. See http://sigchi.org/cuu2003/ for conference details. Special rates for early conference registration are available until October 13, 2003.

The CUU 2003 Doctoral Consortium provides an ideal opportunity for doctoral students to explore their research interests in an interdisciplinary workshop, under the guidance of a panel of distinguished research faculty. The Consortium will be held on Sunday November 9, 2004. Ten (10) students will be invited to attend and discuss each student's work in turn. Student participants will have a poster of their work exhibited at the main conference. Students will receive complimentary conference registration, and reimbursement of travel, accommodation and food. The deadline for submission is Monday September 22, 2003, 5:00 p.m. (1700) Pacific Standard Time.

The Second Conference on Universal Usability is seeking extended abstracts on late breaking research in Universal Usability. We are particularly looking for papers from the social science, economics, communications and sociology community in order to build bridges between researchers in these disciplines and interface designers.

The CUU conference is focused on understanding and guiding those elements of human-computer interface design that affect the ability of a universal collection of people to effectively use and gain benefit from computer applications. Thus, the conference accepts papers in universal accessibility such as interface designs that support screen readers for the blind, but it is also keenly interested in the social nature of accessibility. For example, CUU would like to attract research from those individuals working on the digital divide, in particular, details on the ways in which different socio-economic groups find it difficult to have access to computers and to the Internet. Computers are currently designed for the western knowledge worker with an assumption of infrastructures that support complex exchanges and a robust power supply. A cultural and cost-based redesign has the potential of bridging the digital divide. Thus, research on the nature, extent and characteristics of this gap are solicited. The conference is also interested in research on how different groups respond affectively to various interfaces and how specific applications leave users disturbed about potential invasions of privacy or control – enough so that usage is avoided or limited. A key belief in hosting this conference is that software and computers are cultural objects that have embodied in their design a set of features that clearly state “who” the software and computers are designed for. The focus of the conference is thus, to develop an understanding of how to create these cultural objects so that they speak to a universal audience.

Suggested topics for universal usability abstracts include the following:

1. Digital divide issues in Africa, Indonesia, Poor America, etc.
2. Affective or Emotional Computing
3. Designing interfaces for multiple languages and cultures
4. Trust issues in networked applications
5. Computer training for the computer illiterate
6. Gender differences in responses to computerization, e.g., the automobile

Prepare a two-page extended abstract of your research in the ACM Conference Publications Format, including: title, author information, abstract, keywords, research summary, and references. E-mail this abstract in PDF format to cuu2003-lbr@universalusability.org by the deadline of Monday, September 22, 2003, 5:00 pm (1700) Pacific Standard Time (PST). Accepted abstracts will be available as part of the Proceedings on the conference website. They will not be published in the print Proceedings. At least one author from each accepted abstracts will be required to present the paper at the conference in November. Presenting authors must register for the conference.

See the call for extended abstracts for more information.

Shari Trewin
CUU2003 Publicity Chair

I was catching up on news about CivicSpace by reading Zach Rosen's blog and found him sitting next to Jesse James Garrett in a roundtable discussion with a Senator.

Jesse's face seems to be everywhere.

Kent State's Information Architecture and Knowledge Management program is looking for another professor. I have hung out with Thomas Froehlich and David Robins at a few IA Summits and enjoy hearing about their program. I have yet to go visit them on the other side of Ohio (but I will soon, I promise). In the spirit of supporting them from the western part of the state, here is their faculty posting.

In recognition of the significant growth and development of the Master's Program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management (IAKM), Kent State University has allocated a new tenure-track faculty position at the level of Assistant Professor. The position is available Fall 2006 or January 2007.

The Master's Program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management is a unique, innovative, interdisciplinary program inaugurated in Fall 2001. It has three concentrations: Information Architecture, Information Use and Knowledge Management. It features a progressive curriculum (PDF) that has been extensively revised for the Fall 2006. The program is a collaborative effort of the Department of Computer Science, the Graduate School of Management, the School of Communication Studies, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the School of Visual Communication Design, and the School of Library and Information Science. The School of Library and Information Science administers the IAKM program.

Facilities include a state-of-the-art usability lab, fully-digital classrooms with the most current hardware and software, state-of-the-art distance education tools, whether through interactive television or web-based synchronous or asynchronous learning objects, and instructional designer support.

The successful candidate is expected to teach at least three of the required courses in the concentrations of Information Architecture or Information Use. These courses include Information Architecture, Research Methods for Information Architecture, Information and Visual Design, Usability I, Usability II, and User and Task Analysis. Preference will be given to those with educational training and teaching, work (or consulting) and research experience in these or related areas.

Teaching competencies, teaching experience, work experience or research experience or interest are also sought in several of the following areas:

• Information Architecture
• Usability Testing or Engineering
• User Prototyping: Personas, etc.
• Information Seeking Behavior and the Web
• Human Information Processing
• Interaction Design
• Project Management for Information Architecture or for Usability Testing
• Document Engineering/Management
• Content Management Systems

Qualifications include a Masters degree in Information Science, Computer Science or a related field and a completed doctorate or substantial progress toward completion of a doctorate in Information Science, Computer Science or a related field. Experience and/or interest in synchronous or asynchronous digital distance learning is desirable. Nine-month appointment; summer teaching and workshops may be available. Salary is competitive; benefits are excellent. The position is available for the Fall 2006 (though dependent on the needs of the successful candidate, Spring 2007). Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

To better work with the growing demands of the information economy, Kent State University launched a unique, new college, the College of Communication and Information in July, 2002. It is composed of the School of Communication Studies, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the School of Library and Information Science (including IAKM), and the School of Visual Communication Design. Ohio is a recognized leader in information networks and has undertaken major funding commitments to use information technologies to promote economic development.

Applicants should submit a letter of application, resume, copies of transcripts from all colleges and universities attended (official transcripts will be required in the event of employment), and names of at least three references to:

Prof. Thomas J. Froehlich, Ph.D.
Chair, Search Committee
Information Architecture and Knowledge Management
Kent State University
P.O. Box 5190
Kent, Ohio 44242-0001
email: tfroehli@kent.edu
Phone: (330) 672-2782
Fax: (330) 672-7965
http://iakm.kent.edu

Kent State University supports equal opportunity, affirmative action and diversity in education and employment. Applications from minority group members and women are encouraged.

The article by David Twiddy, AP Business Writer, about cell phone simplicity is getting good distribution (Google search on "Some Cell Phone Owners Spurn Gadgetry").

I did not notice the article until I was reading my Sunday morning paper. The bagels taste better when you are reading things like:

If you bring somebody in and they have problems, it's not because they're dumb, but we were dumb with the design.

We believe there's a strong correlation between our standard of success and how usable the products are.

I am sure most of you reading this found the article long before I waited a week for my local paper to publish it. WebWord covered this article already and there are a few more blog entries about the article and usability.

This week, I merged universalusability.org (which got its start as a student project for the 2000 Conference on Universal Usability) and uuslash.org (which was created in May, 2003, as a community news site). What you see here is the new community site for universal usability. It contains information about what we mean by "universal usability" and news contributions (in blog style) about the topic.

News entries from the previous sites were migrated here, which is why we have news going back to 2000.

I was not able to save most of the accounts - we got hit hard by spammers - so if you had an account on uuslash.org, please create a new one here. Sorry for the inconvenience.